DIRECTOR’S PROMPT COPY The Hostage

Behan’s finest play massively annotated here for an Oxford University student production which was directed by the English theatre director Braham Murray during his time as an undergraduate at University College and before he went onto a successful career in stage direction.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Red quarter cloth quarto over textured paper covered boards (20x25cm) with Murray’s ownership inscription and the play’s title in biro by Murray to the upper cover. 85 page typescript cut up and mounted on rectos opposite copious stage directions and prompt details opposite on the versos, c3000 words in Murray’s handwriting. Immensely detailed, it would be possible to restage Murray’s production of Behan’s text from these instructions in addition to his further annotation to the typed text.

CONTEXT: Murray (1943-2018) spent most of his time at university directing, and eventually left Oxford in 1964 without taking his degree. His student productions included The Connection by Jack Gelber, The Hostage by Brendan Behan found here, A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt and Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco as well as co-writing and directing. He went on to found the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. Behan’s The Hostage was adapted, and extended, by the author from a one-act Irish language play ‘An Giall’ and first staged by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London, in 1958.